FCPS School Hours Will Change Next Fall

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Fairfax County has now joined, 70 other districts out of 95 in the state of Virginia with High Schools that will begin classes after 8:00 AM. Since 2012 we heard about local government trying to change school hours and now they have finally voted to make a change. This change will not affect the hours we already have here at Mountain View.

Fairfax County teenagers will have the chance for extra sleep, during next fall under the newly approved schedule as of late Thursday October 27th. This new schedule will push back the first class of the day in high schools to 8 a.m. or after. The School board voted 11-1 to delay the time of 22 high schools and three secondary schools between 8:00 and 8:10 AM.

“The issue of later start times has been debated and explored for more than a decade in this community,” said Tammy Derenak-Kaufax, School Board chairman. “The growing body of research on the health benefits for adolescents has become so clear and compelling, we felt that we had to make a change.”

The new plan for schools was designed and was also supported by the National Children’s Medical School. They figured out that High School Students were affected during school for not having enough sleep. The regular High School classes start at 7:20 am, but this change will help more than 57,000 High School students to get more sleep. The changes will also affect middle schools, which will begin classes up to 30 minutes earlier at 7:30 a.m. This plan will take action on the beginning of 2015-2016.

This change will cost around $4.9 million. Why will it cost so much tax payer money? It will be used to purchase 27 new buses and pay for new bus drivers.

This change will not affect me as a student of Fairfax County although it will affect many other students. I believe that the government should think more about this plan. Even though it sounds great, many people who pay taxes do not agree to this upcoming law. It may help some students, but It will also cause a problem to those students that have no support from their parents to study. Many of us need to work and the later we enter school the later we get out. Students can easily go to bed an hour earlier to have enough sleep. It is not worth the extra money of taxes.

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I think delaying the school hours might help some of the students who work late at night and also it creates more job opportunity for others, but it costs too much money. There are some of the issue: most of the parents need to work early, so they need to come up with new plan to take their young children to school which not convince. In addition, students might not go to bed early even the schools start late, and so the health benefit might becomes useless.

cachetona on
December 8th, 2014 2:33 pm

I agree the later the school starts the later they will get out, yet it is a good idea for those who have jobs, sleep less and study a lot during the night for any upcoming test or quiz they might have the next day in school.